Preparations for Davening

From Halachipedia

Proper Dress for Davening

  1. One must wear a belt during davening, though some say this applies only to someone who usually wears a belt, for someone who does not usually wear a belt it is considered a pious practice to wear one for davening. [1]
  2. If one’s pants are tight the pants will serve as a sufficient separation between the top and bottom part of one's body, but it is still a pious practice to wear a belt. [2]
  3. Being dressed properly depends on the standards of the time and place and the way people would walk in the streets and in front of important people. If it is accepted to wear short sleeve shirts or sandals without socks, one does not usually need to change for davening. One needs to make sure one is wearing respectable clothes as one is standing before Hashem. [3]
  4. One who usually works in short pants (shorts) is not recommended to daven in shorts, but it is not forbidden to. [4]
  5. One who usually wears a hat and jacket and happens not to have them should not daven without it unless one will miss davening with a minyan if one waits until one acquires a hat and jacket. (Draping a jacket over one’s shoulders is not considered wearing it.) However, one who usually does not wear a hat or jacket does not have to wear them during davening, but it is still a proper practice. [5]
  6. One should not daven in a robe or a bathing suit. [6]
  7. Some have the practice to wear a hat during davening in order to be properly dressed for davening. [7]

Preparing the Text for Davening

  1. Even though in theory it is proper to prepare the text of the holiday davenings we don't say so often, such as rosh chodesh, chanuka, purim, or the like, the minhag is to rely on the fact that we daven from a printed siddur and not prepare the text beforehand. Nonetheless, one should be careful to say yaaleh veyavo or the like from a siddur the first time they are said after 29 days.[8]

Needing the Bathroom

  1. If one needs to go to the bathroom, even if one would be able to hold it in for 72 minutes, it would be preferable not to pray until one has gone to the bathroom, unless one will miss praying before the latest time for Shemona Esreh by doing so. [9]

Going to Mikveh

  1. Originally, Ezra HaSofer made an institution that someone who was impure may not learn Torah or pray until he dips in the mikveh. However, this practice was not upheld and nowadays it is permitted for an impure person to learn Torah and daven.[10]

Sources

  1. ↑ Shulchan Aruch 91:2, Mishna Brurah 91:4
  2. ↑ Avnei Yishfeh (pg 53 note 5), Piskei Teshuvot 91:1
  3. ↑ Piskei Teshuvot 91:3
  4. ↑ Halichot Shlomo 2:15
  5. ↑ Halichot Shlomo 2:15, Piskei Teshuvot 91:3
  6. ↑ Halichot Shlomo (2:15 note 73)
  7. ↑ The Mishna Brurah 91:12 quotes the Chaye Adam as saying that one should wear a hat for davening just as people walk in the street with a hat.
  8. ↑ The gemara Rosh Hashana 35a states that one should prepare one's tefillah every 30 days. The Tur 100:1 explains that there's a dispute whether this includes rosh chodesh or not. The Ritva (Rosh Hashana 35a s.v. Amar Rabbi Elazar) and the Shulchan Aruch 100:1 rule that one should also prepare the rosh chodesh tehillah and all the more so the less frequent tefillot. Rabbenu Manoch (quoted by the Beit Yosef 100:1) says that if one is davening from a siddur one doesn't have to prepare it in advance. While the Shulchan Aruch 100:1 doesn't hold like the Rabbenu Manoch, the Rama 100:1 does and the Yalkut Yosef 100:1 writes that the sephardi minhag is to rely on the rama.
  9. ↑ Yalkut Yosef 92:1
  10. ↑ Gemara Brachot 22a, Rambam (Kriyat Shema 5:4), Shulchan Aruch 88:1. See, however, the opinion of Rav Hai Goan quoted by Rosh (Brachot 3:21) and Rif 13b who says that the institution of Ezra was only repealed with regards to learning Torah and not davening.
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